Scribus vs ConTeXt

Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Kip Warner]

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Hey folks,

I was wondering if someone could offer a meaningful comparison in a
nutshell to a layperson of the pros and cons of using Scribus versus
ConTeXt. I actually just discovered the former today.

-- 
Kip Warner -- Software Engineer
OpenPGP encrypted/signed mail preferred
http://www.thevertigo.com

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Khaled Hosny]

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On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 11:34:07AM -0800, Kip Warner wrote:
> Hey folks,
> 
> I was wondering if someone could offer a meaningful comparison in a
> nutshell to a layperson of the pros and cons of using Scribus versus
> ConTeXt. I actually just discovered the former today.

With Scribus you get an nice GUI, with ConTeXt you get every thing else
that really matters for a typesetting job.

Regards,
 Khaled

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Jaroslav Hajtmar]

Hello,
I work quite often with Scribus (but I am not expert). I use it mainly 
to leaflets, posters (great tools for posters for me) and other similar 
things that contain a lot of graphics, overlays, etc. I can imagine 
writing a small magazine with lots of images, etc. For extensive work 
(thesis and large documents with a large majority of the text) in the 
Scribus current version can not imagine it. Those who can not nothing in 
TeX or ConTeXt Scribus is an interesting option. It's clickable tool 
that allows to one who does not understand typography and not feeling 
for it  do make a nice shit.
Typography expert can produce very nice documents. Or also, someone who 
has a great feel for typography.
Scribus is developing quite quickly and quite well with developers 
trying to improve it. For some time it will definitely be a tool that 
can tread on the heels of InDesign

Jaroslav Hajtmar


Dne 28.2.2012 20:34, Kip Warner napsal(a):
> Hey folks,
>
> I was wondering if someone could offer a meaningful comparison in a
> nutshell to a layperson of the pros and cons of using Scribus versus
> ConTeXt. I actually just discovered the former today.
>
>    
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
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> archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
> ___________________________________________________________________________________

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 2012-02-28 um 21:20 schrieb Jaroslav Hajtmar:

>
> Hello,
> I work quite often with Scribus (but I am not expert). I use it  
> mainly to leaflets, posters (great tools for posters for me) and  
> other similar things that contain a lot of graphics, overlays, etc.  
> I can imagine writing a small magazine with lots of images, etc. For  
> extensive work (thesis and large documents with a large majority of  
> the text) in the Scribus current version can not imagine it. Those  
> who can not nothing in TeX or ConTeXt Scribus is an interesting  
> option. It's clickable tool that allows to one who does not  
> understand typography and not feeling for it  do make a nice shit.
> Typography expert can produce very nice documents. Or also, someone  
> who has a great feel for typography.
> Scribus is developing quite quickly and quite well with developers  
> trying to improve it. For some time it will definitely be a tool  
> that can tread on the heels of InDesign

But it still lacks a lot of essential features for professional work  
(at least in my area), e.g. usable master pages and nondestructional  
import of vector graphics (esp. PDF), CMYK and spot colors. Correct me  
if it gained these lastly - I know they're working on it, but the  
development speed is much much slower than ConTeXt’s. Maybe it’s more  
stable and reliable therefore...

Scribus has at least one feature that sets it ahead of InDesign  
(besides being Open Source): render frames (similar functionality as  
ConTeX’s filter module - replace foreign sourcecode by its result).

Greetlings,
Hraban
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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Jaroslav Hajtmar]

You have generally right ... But I think that you must not take the 
measure of the devilish speed the development rate of development of 
ConTEXt :-)

I often I make a text document using the Context and the resulting PDF 
document I put into Scribus. With Scribus I put graphics, titles etc.
For normal use Scribus is a good choice. But you have right - for 
professional work in the end one needs a professional tool like InDesign 
or QuarkXpress.

Jaroslav


Dne 28.2.2012 23:26, Henning Hraban Ramm napsal(a):
> But it still lacks a lot of essential features for professional work 
> (at least in my area), e.g. usable master pages and nondestructional 
> import of vector graphics (esp. PDF), CMYK and spot colors. Correct me 
> if it gained these lastly - I know they're working on it, but the 
> development speed is much much slower than ConTeXt’s. Maybe it’s more 
> stable and reliable therefore...
>
> Scribus has at least one feature that sets it ahead of InDesign 
> (besides being Open Source): render frames (similar functionality as 
> ConTeX’s filter module - replace foreign sourcecode by its result). 

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Kip Warner]

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On Tue, 2012-02-28 at 21:20 +0100, Jaroslav Hajtmar wrote:
> Hello,
> I work quite often with Scribus (but I am not expert). I use it mainly 
> to leaflets, posters (great tools for posters for me) and other similar 
> things that contain a lot of graphics, overlays, etc. I can imagine 
> writing a small magazine with lots of images, etc. For extensive work 
> (thesis and large documents with a large majority of the text) in the 
> Scribus current version can not imagine it. Those who can not nothing in 
> TeX or ConTeXt Scribus is an interesting option. It's clickable tool 
> that allows to one who does not understand typography and not feeling 
> for it  do make a nice shit.
> Typography expert can produce very nice documents. Or also, someone who 
> has a great feel for typography.
> Scribus is developing quite quickly and quite well with developers 
> trying to improve it. For some time it will definitely be a tool that 
> can tread on the heels of InDesign
> 
> Jaroslav Hajtmar

Thanks Jaroslav. That was comprehensive.

-- 
Kip Warner -- Software Engineer
OpenPGP encrypted/signed mail preferred
http://www.thevertigo.com

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Kip Warner]

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On Tue, 2012-02-28 at 21:43 +0200, Khaled Hosny wrote:
> With Scribus you get an nice GUI, with ConTeXt you get every thing else
> that really matters for a typesetting job.
> 
> Regards,
>  Khaled

Hey Khaled. That is kind of a given, but thanks anyways.

-- 
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http://www.thevertigo.com

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[William Adams]

On Feb 28, 2012, at 2:34 PM, Kip Warner wrote:

> I was wondering if someone could offer a meaningful comparison in a
> nutshell to a layperson of the pros and cons of using Scribus versus
> ConTeXt. I actually just discovered the former today.

With a graphical tool, one is limited to the automation which the developers are willing to build into the tool and sentenced to handling manually _everything_ else, _every_ time that there's a change, e.g., if you have a keyword block on your opening article pages aligned against the outside gutter and the layout program can't place it automatically and contextually, then _every_ time the article changes from opening to a left to a right or vice-versa one has to make that change manually.

I wrote up a longer comparison once upon a time --- Scribus isn't that much different from InDesign and Quark, so the criticism holds:

While I'm no TeX wizard, I prefer it because it allows one to off-load
some of the tedium and repetitiveness to the computer, as opposed to
repeatedly solving variations of the same problems by hand time after
time after time.

So,

- using Quark is like being chained to a an oar which is covered w/
splinters and mostly broken at the other end and which will randomly
break due to being poorly carved (Quark has crashed on me 183 times
this year) leaving one adrift or run aground, or sometimes returning
the vessel to its starting point (a few of those crashes have resulted
in unrecoverable document corruption --- my autobackup folder may
contain 2 or 3 GBs of files for a given iteration of a particular
project each month) --- the oar can be smoothed somewhat and reinforced
(by purchasing or finding XTensions, using XTags &c.) and periodically
one is required to purchase a new oar (sometimes just after the
previous one has been customized adequately). For some tasks, one can
impress any graphic designer as a galley slave to ease the effort for
others, but while charts are available, there are no automagic
navigation options and every journey must be manually piloted.

- using InDesign is pretty much the same except the oar is smoother
and stronger (it's crashed 29 times on me thus far this year), there
aren't as many customization options and it's not quite as easy to find
a candidate for impressment (though soon it'll be as easy as for
Quark). Charts are available, but again, piloting is strictly manual.

- using Plain TeX one has to craft the vessel's oar oneself (as well
as the rest of the vessel unless one is typesetting a clone of _The
TeXbook_), but it's as sturdy and as nice a one as one's skills allow
and can even be an engine which moves the vessel in and of itself ---
it can be difficult or impossible to find people suitable to help w/
either carving the oar or using it though, but once a given journey is
worked out, the oar becomes magical and rows for itself except for when
one runs into an unplanned for obstacle (the navigation charts are old
ones and not often up-dated, with a lot of ``terra incognita''),
allowing one an auto-pilot option for certain journeys, dependent upon
one's skill.

- using ePlain, an oar is provided, can be customized, and can be
enchanted and the charts are okay, but have a lot of ``terra
incognita'' on them.

- using LaTeX, an oar is provided and there're lots of nifty
customizations and improvements already available, and one can impress
additional oars from CTAN, however on a semi-random basis, adding one
oar will break other oars, sometimes leaving one adrift or run aground.
One can enchant a set of oars to accomplish a given journey, easing the
piloting requirement, and the navigation charts are decent and
obstacles are fairly well-known.

- using ConTeXt, a very nice oar is provided, which has lots of
customization options, but the navigational charts aren't easily read
by a traditionally trained navigator at first, although they are fairly
compleat and most journey can be carefully worked out, but once one is,
it is quite automatic and there's a good auto-pilot option.

William

-- 
William Adams
senior graphic designer
Fry Communications
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Marco Pessotto]

William Adams <will.adams@frycomm.com> writes:

> With a graphical tool, one is limited to the automation which the
> developers are willing to build into the tool and sentenced to
> handling manually _everything_ else, _every_ time that there's a
> change, e.g., if you have a keyword block on your opening article
> pages aligned against the outside gutter and the layout program can't
> place it automatically and contextually, then _every_ time the article
> changes from opening to a left to a right or vice-versa one has to
> make that change manually.
> [...]

This is the best comparison I've seen in ages. Thanks for this. It was a
delight to read.

-- 
Marco

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Michael Hallgren]

Le mercredi 29 février 2012 à 18:41 +0100, Marco Pessotto a écrit :
> William Adams <will.adams@frycomm.com> writes:
> 
> > With a graphical tool, one is limited to the automation which the
> > developers are willing to build into the tool and sentenced to
> > handling manually _everything_ else, _every_ time that there's a
> > change, e.g., if you have a keyword block on your opening article
> > pages aligned against the outside gutter and the layout program can't
> > place it automatically and contextually, then _every_ time the article
> > changes from opening to a left to a right or vice-versa one has to
> > make that change manually.
> > [...]
> 
> This is the best comparison I've seen in ages. Thanks for this. It was a
> delight to read.

Count me in among supporters as well. ;)

mh

> 


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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Martin Schröder]

2012/2/29 William Adams <will.adams@frycomm.com>:
> I wrote up a longer comparison once upon a time --- Scribus isn't that much different from InDesign and Quark, so the criticism holds:

wikify please!

Best
   Martin
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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Marco Pessotto]

Martin Schröder <martin@oneiros.de> writes:

> 2012/2/29 William Adams <will.adams@frycomm.com>:
>> I wrote up a longer comparison once upon a time --- Scribus isn't that much different from InDesign and Quark, so the criticism holds:
>
> wikify please!


http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Comparison_between_ConTeXt_and_other_typesetting_programs

(But it's not linked from anywhere)

-- 
Marco

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[William Adams]

On Feb 29, 2012, at 2:30 PM, Martin Schröder wrote:

> wikify please!

Thanks! I'm flattered everyone enjoyed it.

To properly frame the context of the original post it was written back in 2006:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.text.tex/msg/36401bceced0ee9a?dmode=source

when I was using Quark 6 and InDesign CS.

Worth going back and reading the original just to see David Kastrup's post which engendered it.

William

-- 
William Adams
senior graphic designer
Fry Communications
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Khaled Hosny]

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 11:29:30AM -0500, William Adams wrote:
> Scribus isn't that much different from InDesign and Quark, so the
> criticism holds:

Scribus is even worse; it lacks OpenType support, complex text layout,
right to left support, a not brain dead paragraph builder etc.

Regards,
 Khaled
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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Kip Warner]

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On Wed, 2012-02-29 at 11:29 -0500, William Adams wrote:
> With a graphical tool, one is limited to the automation which the developers are willing to build into the tool and sentenced to handling manually _everything_ else, _every_ time that there's a change, e.g., if you have a keyword block on your opening article pages aligned against the outside gutter and the layout program can't place it automatically and contextually, then _every_ time the article changes from opening to a left to a right or vice-versa one has to make that change manually.
> 
> I wrote up a longer comparison once upon a time --- Scribus isn't that much different from InDesign and Quark, so the criticism holds:
> 
> While I'm no TeX wizard, I prefer it because it allows one to off-load
> some of the tedium and repetitiveness to the computer, as opposed to
> repeatedly solving variations of the same problems by hand time after
> time after time.
> 
> So,

Superb coverage Will and I appreciate the philosophical approach. I
think Hans et al should maybe consider adding your description to the
wiki somewhere suitable.

-- 
Kip Warner -- Software Engineer
OpenPGP encrypted/signed mail preferred
http://www.thevertigo.com

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Kip Warner]

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On Wed, 2012-02-29 at 11:29 -0500, William Adams wrote:
> With a graphical tool, one is limited to the automation which the developers are willing to build into the tool and sentenced to handling manually _everything_ else, _every_ time that there's a change, e.g., if you have a keyword block on your opening article pages aligned against the outside gutter and the layout program can't place it automatically and contextually, then _every_ time the article changes from opening to a left to a right or vice-versa one has to make that change manually.
> 
> I wrote up a longer comparison once upon a time --- Scribus isn't that much different from InDesign and Quark, so the criticism holds:
> 
> While I'm no TeX wizard, I prefer it because it allows one to off-load
> some of the tedium and repetitiveness to the computer, as opposed to
> repeatedly solving variations of the same problems by hand time after
> time after time.
> 
> So,

Great comparison and I just realized its already on the wiki. =)

-- 
Kip Warner -- Software Engineer
OpenPGP encrypted/signed mail preferred
http://www.thevertigo.com

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Kip Warner]

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On Wed, 2012-02-29 at 20:40 +0100, Marco Pessotto wrote:
> http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Comparison_between_ConTeXt_and_other_typesetting_programs
> 
> (But it's not linked from anywhere)
> 

Thanks Marco.

-- 
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OpenPGP encrypted/signed mail preferred
http://www.thevertigo.com

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Kip Warner]

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One other thing too that I don't know if anyone has ever raised anywhere
is that other typesetting applications that store their project files in
some kind of proprietary or binary format will probably not be very diff
friendly. A big advantage to anything TeXish is that it makes
collaboration on a large document much easier because it can be typeset
using plaintext documents.

-- 
Kip Warner -- Software Engineer
OpenPGP encrypted/signed mail preferred
http://www.thevertigo.com

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 29. Februar 2012 21:10 schrieb Kip Warner <kip@thevertigo.com>:
> One other thing too that I don't know if anyone has ever raised anywhere
> is that other typesetting applications that store their project files in
> some kind of proprietary or binary format will probably not be very diff
> friendly. A big advantage to anything TeXish is that it makes
> collaboration on a large document much easier because it can be typeset
> using plaintext documents.

At least InDesign's and Scribus' files have a XML representation and
would be diffable/versionable in that format.
InDesign's XML format is widely used e.g. in editorial systems; you
can also save just snippets (layout parts).

I'd like to add that the mentioned GUI programs all are scriptable -
Scribus in Python (AFAIK), InDesign in JavaScript or AppleScript;
don't know about the current state of XPress, in old versions on the
Mac it supported Frontier, then AppleScript.
I've some experience in remote controlling ID by Python appscript
(i.e. sending AppleScript events from Python); it works, but is not
very reliable, mostly due to missing/wrong documentation on Adobe's
side and quirks of AppleScript. Scripting TeX is much easier; I still
seldom use Lua, but write ConTeXt sources from Python scripts.

Greetlings, Hraban
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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Aditya Mahajan]

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On Wed, 29 Feb 2012, Marco Pessotto wrote:

> Martin Schröder <martin@oneiros.de> writes:
>
>> 2012/2/29 William Adams <will.adams@frycomm.com>:
>>> I wrote up a longer comparison once upon a time --- Scribus isn't that much different from InDesign and Quark, so the criticism holds:
>>
>> wikify please!
>
>
> http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Comparison_between_ConTeXt_and_other_typesetting_programs
>
> (But it's not linked from anywhere)

Added a link at http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Humour

Aditya

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Kip Warner]

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On Wed, 2012-02-29 at 21:25 +0100, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> Am 29. Februar 2012 21:10 schrieb Kip Warner <kip@thevertigo.com>:
> > One other thing too that I don't know if anyone has ever raised anywhere
> > is that other typesetting applications that store their project files in
> > some kind of proprietary or binary format will probably not be very diff
> > friendly. A big advantage to anything TeXish is that it makes
> > collaboration on a large document much easier because it can be typeset
> > using plaintext documents.
> 
> At least InDesign's and Scribus' files have a XML representation and
> would be diffable/versionable in that format.
> InDesign's XML format is widely used e.g. in editorial systems; you
> can also save just snippets (layout parts).

What I was getting at was plain text makes merging of patches easier.
Even if you have an XML format, it's still intended to be more machine
readable than human readable and applying a set of patches to an XML
project file is more likely to break it than ones that were written by
hand in the first place.

-- 
Kip Warner -- Software Engineer
OpenPGP encrypted/signed mail preferred
http://www.thevertigo.com

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Alan Braslau]

On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:29:30 -0500
William Adams <will.adams@frycomm.com> wrote:

> So,

I can just picture Hans beating the drum and Taco wielding the whip!

Alan
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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[William Adams]

On Feb 29, 2012, at 3:25 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

> I'd like to add that the mentioned GUI programs all are scriptable -
> Scribus in Python (AFAIK), InDesign in JavaScript or AppleScript;
> don't know about the current state of XPress, in old versions on the
> Mac it supported Frontier, then AppleScript.

As I noted, the oars are customizable.

Unfortunately, there aren't many hooks in InDesign (and none I'm aware of in Quark) to activate scripts automatically, so that a document will build itself --- one which is pretty cool is Dirk Becker's auto-indexing script which will run a script to format index entries (so as to make up for InDesign's inability to capture character styles in index entries). Even more egregious is that many features in Quark are specifically prohibited from being scripted (last I checked), requiring one to use interface events.

Moreover, as was recently noted on the InDesign mailing list, long document support in InDesign is sorely lacking (the new span columns feature trumps keep specifications for minimum number lines in a paragraph for example, and it's all-too easy to have an index in a book be too large to be generated by InDesign in one pass, requiring one to do it in sections, then use a script or a specialty indexing program to merge the sub-indices.

Lastly, AIUI InDesign's (and probably Quark's) licensing prohibits remote usage from a server unless one purchases the Server version.

William

-- 
William Adams
senior graphic designer
Fry Communications
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[Martin Schröder]

2012/3/1 William Adams <will.adams@frycomm.com>:
> Unfortunately, there aren't many hooks in InDesign (and none I'm aware of in Quark) to activate scripts automatically, so that a document will build itself --- one which is pretty cool is Dirk Becker's auto-indexing script which will run a script to format index entries (so as to make up for InDesign's inability to capture character styles in index entries).

May I suggest you contact our sales agent: http://www.priint.net/en/ -
if you truely want to do Database Publishing with InDesign. :-)

Best
   Martin
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Re: Scribus vs ConTeXt

[William Adams]

On Mar 1, 2012, at 11:15 AM, Martin Schröder wrote:

> May I suggest you contact our sales agent: http://www.priint.net/en/ -
> if you truely want to do Database Publishing with InDesign. :-)

Naturally, the rules change if one is using InDesign CS Server --- we have a license and use it and some other proprietary plug-ins (the company bought XMPie) --- we truly do database publishing with InDesign (and other tools), but that's not something of interest to the typical user --- kind of like all those old discussions where people would state all of TeX's awkward aspects are addressed in 3B2.

William

-- 
William Adams
senior graphic designer
Fry Communications
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

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